


An Affair Now And Then Is Good For A Marriage

by Blacksaffron



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Long-Term Relationship(s), Love, Marriage, Muggle Technology, Secrets, Sexual Frustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:14:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24492598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blacksaffron/pseuds/Blacksaffron
Summary: Disclaimer: For fun, not for profit. Just an attempt at trying something new.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/?, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	An Affair Now And Then Is Good For A Marriage

_An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring - I ought to know... Bette Davis_

* * *

  
  
‘I want us to have an affair’. 

‘ _Pardon?’_

‘Look, I know this has probably come as a bit out of the blue but let me-‘

‘What’s going on? Are you not happy, Hermione? With-‘

‘I’m- I am happy. I _love_ being married - it’s just, lately, I feel like there’s something... _missing_. Don’t you ever feel that way? We all got married so young, didn’t we?’ 

She fidgets with her napkin

‘Forget I said anything, I didn’t mean - it was a completely inappropriate thing to say...’

‘Is it...are you not...is it just sex?’ 

‘Yes...no...I...oh, I really wish I’d never...’

Her companion looks at her, eyes expressionless. She wishes she could tell what he was thinking, push her way past his barriers to see what he is thinking of her proposal, what he thinks of her for even suggesting it. He stares at her thoughtfully for a while, before leaning across the table and takes her hand in his.

‘Tell me what it is you _want_ , Hermione.’

She looks into his eyes and she thinks she can see a little glimmer of intrigue.

‘I’m not _unhappy_. I love my life, the kids, it’s...perfect. It’s all I ever wanted.’ 

He unfolds her hand and traces little circles on her palm. She shivers, and the corner of his mouth creases in an almost-smirk.

‘I sense a ‘but’. Talk to me’

‘I love being a mum. Being a wife. But I miss - just being able to be me, to be completely selfish about what I want, for a short time. I love everything about being married, the intimacy, knowing everything there is to know about a person, waking up to them every day and sleeping with them every night. Snuggling up in front of the fire and lazy, Sunday love.’

His long fingers are now stroking up the smooth skin of her inner arm.

‘But?’

‘Do you ever miss the excitement, the thrill from the start of a relationship? The anticipation, the nerves, that absolute need to be together whenever and whenever you can? Sneaking off from parties, snogging in broom closets until you can hardly breathe? Knowing that someone wants to fuck you as much as you do them? And I mean _fucking_ , not making love. An hour or two without thinking, only giving and receiving as much pleasure as you can instead of worrying that your kids will hear or if your husband really doesn’t care that you can’t shift the fifteen pounds you’ve gained since you had them, of trying to fit sex in around sports matches and in laws and laundry. I just - I’d like to try being something other than a wife, a mum-‘

‘And you want to do - that - together? With me?’

‘You know that I’ve always wanted you’. 

* * *

....... ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a Muggle mobile phone. I have one, too. I’ve programmed the number in for you?’

‘Why?’

She smiles, nervously, brushing invisible fluff off the her new dress. It’s more fitted than usual, with a deeper vee. She knew they’d be in the same Department Head meeting at the Ministry today, and he’d offered to buy her coffee afterwards. She’d been anxious about wearing it, worried it was too obvious, but the way his eyes keep flickering to her chest indicate it’s to his taste.

‘It’s a way for us to communicate, discreetly. We can talk to each other, you can send written messages, it can even take and send photographs, look.’

He looks very intrigued by the last thought. ‘So you could send me things and only I can see them?’

‘Yes.’

He turns the shiny rectangle around in his hand curiously.

‘There’s a little pamphlet inside that shows you how to use it, I thought you might rise to the challenge?’

‘And what’s my reward if I do?’

‘Learn how to send me a text and I’ll tell you.’

He grins, boyishly, and the mischievous look on his face takes her back twenty years, when they were at school and he was her first, hidden crush. The boy she thought of behind the hangings of her bed, at night, as she fumbled and first learnt how to give herself pleasure. 

‘I like this idea. But what made you come up with it instead of the usual...?’

‘I wanted something that was just for me and you. A secret. It’s exciting.’

* * *

He comes home late from work that evening and for the first time in a while takes the time to properly kiss his wife hello, lifting her chin gently before slanting his mouth on hers until she sighs. He smiles against her mouth as his daughter protests loudly from the kitchen table.

‘ _Dad_! Stop snogging Mum! You’re too old for that! Ack, disgusting.’

She piles her homework in her arms and stomps upstairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. He smiles, wryly.

‘She’s not even _eleven_ yet. What’s she going to be like when she’s a teenager?’

His wife grins. ‘You’re surprised that _our_ daughter has a temper?’

Peace is restored over dinner and he volunteers to supervise the kids’ homework as his wife sets the kitchen to rights. She’d already changed out of her work clothes by the time he’d got home and she looks adorably young in her leggings and one of his ancient Quidditch jerseys. He’s always felt a fierce, masculine pride, seeing his name on her back, and he loves that she still wears it, threadbare though it is. He peeks through the door at her. She’s got the wireless on, and is singing tunelessly along to Celestina Warbeck. She sounds happier than she has, for a while.

He stands in the dim hallway fingering the shiny, black contraption in his pocket and laboriously types out his first text message.

‘I can’t stop thinking about how unbelievably sexy you looked in that dress today.’

* * *

Hermione is out for drinks with her girlfriends for the first time in ages. They share stories about their kids and moan about their husbands as they sample the Leaky’s new range of cocktails. The kids are off spending the weekend with their grandparents - where they will be spoiled rotten - and her husband left early this morning while she was still in her pyjamas, making the kids breakfast, mentioning something about a Quidditch match and a few pints with the lads.

After the third round they are a bit giddy. Hannah Abbott - now Longbottom, is telling them all the details from her recent honeymoon and Hermione is quite sure she never needed to know how randy her childhood friend gets on holiday. She shudders. She still thinks of Neville as the shy, chubby boy with the toad, not Professor Longbottom, Hogwarts’ most lusted-after Professor since Gilderoy Lockhart.

Ginny snorts into her drink at the tales of Neville’s stamina. ‘Make the most of the summer hols before he’s back at work, Hannah. Harry’s been doing so much overtime lately I barely seen him, then when he does finally come home he’s always knackered and passes out on the sofa while he’s meant to be helping the kids with their homework. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like’.

She sighs and nudges Hermione, ‘at least it’s not just me, it must be the same for you at the moment’.

Hermione smiles wryly before excusing herself to the bathroom. The pub is heaving in the late afternoon and she has to push her way through. She sits on the lid of the loo and pulls the little black mobile phone out of her bag to see the message on the screen.

_‘Been thinking of you all day.’_

She feels slightly guilty. The phone buzzes again before she can reply.

_‘Where are you now?’_

_‘Loo at the Leaky’_

_‘Now all I can think of is what I could do to you, hidden in a bathroom stall’_

She bites her lip. They’ve been sending increasingly more intimate messages to each other this week, but this is openly suggestive. She wonders if he’s had a couple of drinks too. Before she can change her mind she taps out a reply before shoving the phone into her pocket and unbolting the door.

_‘I want you to tell me what you’d do to me, if you were here’._

Her phone is silent for a long time afterwards and she chews on her lip, anxiously. Perhaps she was too forward, too obvious? She joins the crowd at the bar and finally feels the vibration in her pocket. She taps Ginny on the shoulder and tells her she’s popping outside for some air. Her friend looks concerned, so she fans her face with her hand.

‘Just a bit hot, I’ll only be a minute.’

’Okay, says Ginny. ‘Harry said the boys are coming here later, perhaps the four of us can go and get something to eat together?’

Hermione nods, and pushes her way out of the pub and leans against the brick wall. She pulls the phone out of her pocket with trembling fingers and reads the detailed reply, hot and sick with embarrassment and lust.

_‘I’m watching you from the bar. You look so fresh and pretty in your sundress and all I want to do is mess you up. When you laugh, you throw your head back and I want to run my tongue along the line of your neck. When you tilt your head to the side, I want to bite down where your neck meets your shoulder and leave the mark of my teeth on you for everyone to see. It makes me hard, standing here, watching you. I want to catch your arm as you make your way to the bathroom and see the surprise in your eyes as you realise it’s me, see you smile up at me. I want the crowds at the bar to jostle us together so your body presses up against mine, I want you to feel what you do to me. I want to whisper in your ear that I want you, now, and to see you bite that pouty bottom lip for me. I want you to guide me through the crowds and cast a perfect Disillusionment so I can follow you into the stall at the end, where I’ll cast a Muffliato of my own. I want to hear you whisper that we have to be quick, we only have minutes. I want to slam you back against the wall and slide my tongue into your hot little mouth as your shaking hands unfasten my belt. I want to pull down the strap of your sundress so I can see your fabulous tits. I want to run my hands up your thighs and tug aside your knickers as you hook your leg around my waist. I want you to guide me into you and to see your head fall back and your mouth fall open as I push into your tight, wet, lovely little cunt. I want to lift you, fuck you until I feel you clench and gush around me. I’d be a gentleman, and ask you if you wanted me to perform a cleansing Charm, but I’d much rather send you back out to your friends in your pretty little dress, full of my come.’_

Hermione is shaking as she finishes reading the message, cheeks flushed and her knickers soaked. She re-enters the pub, needing to sort herself out before rejoining her friends, the thought of going back into the bathroom after reading that making her face warm.

As she passes the bar she sees him, standing with their friends at the bar. He raises his glass to her in greeting.

After she’s visited the loo she joins the crowd at the bar, greeting mutual friends. When she brushes against him as he chats to Seamus, she slips a scrap of damp lace into his pocket. 

On Monday, they are alone in the lift at the Ministry. He gives her a filthy, open-mouthed kiss, pulling away just in time as the doors slide open.

By Friday, she has scheduled a lunchtime meeting in his diary and gets on her knees for him in his office, his hands in her curls as he shudders and curses and thrusts into her mouth. It makes her so excited she rubs at herself through her knickers and when he looks down and sees her he moans her name and explodes down her throat. 

The next week they leave work early and fuck in a Muggle hotel.

* * *

He thought the novelty would wear off rather quickly but he can’t believe how exciting he finds her during their encounters. She’s demanding, uninhibited and he loves watching her chase her own pleasure. They experiment, trying things neither of them have ever done before. They send each other pictures, share their most hidden fantasies by text message.

They manage a whole night away on her birthday, and she lets him take her in her arse for the very first time. He wanks in the shower to the memory of that for weeks, and when he tells her how he’s fantasised over her full, round backside since he was a teenager, she starts tormenting him at work, wearing tight little pencil skirts and high heels that make her bum stick out and look fantastic. When he lifts her skirt in his office one day, she’s wearing stockings and suspenders that frame her arse beautifully. He can hardly keep his hands off his little temptress.  
  


* * *

She thought it might change things at home, but when her husband spoons her from behind on sleepy Sunday mornings, slipping a hand into her pyjamas and stroking her to readiness before sliding into her and loving her slowly in ways that are so familiar after fifteen years together, she enjoys it as much, if not more than before.

They start holding hands again, to the kids’ horror, and he kisses her before they leave for work and again when he gets home at night.

As she finishes her Christmas shopping she realises it’s been four months since she started living her double life. When she’s sorted everything for the kids, her parents and in-laws, she finds herself in Twilfit and Tattings, fingering a soft cashmere jumper which she thinks will suit him. She hides the giftwrapped box in her office and hands it to him on Christmas Eve before he bends her over his desk. 

* * *

On Christmas morning, the family open their presents in their pyjamas. She picks up the customary, book-shaped package labelled _‘To My Wife’._ When she tears off the paper, she finds Eurostar tickets and a travel guide to Wizarding Paris. Her husband brushes the tear that’s spilled onto her cheek and whispers, they never did get a honeymoon, did they, with Rose on her way before the wedding?

Hermione heads back upstairs to dress while the kids squabble over their new toys. When she enters the bedroom, after her shower, an unfamiliar owl is tapping on the window. She unfastens the parcel from his leg and places the slim, cream box on the bed. She opens it and peels back the paper to find an exquisite silk slip, the cups made of delicate lace. She pulls it on and looks at herself in the mirror. The lace hem skims the top of her thighs, the silk clinging to her hips and waist. The cups are sheer, the pink of her nipples peeking through. The colour makes her skin glow. She barely recognises herself as the thirty-five year old wife, the mum. 

She snaps a picture of herself in it and sends it to her lover, before pulling on the green cashmere dress she’s chosen for the day. She heads downstairs and sees her husband smirking up at her, tapping on his phone as the matching one in her hand buzzes, twice.

She was right, the soft brown cashmere jumper looks lovely against his red hair. It’s time they spoiled each other, as well as the kids. She looks down at the phone in her hand to read the messages and smiles back up at her husband, her love. The first and only man she’s ever wanted. 

_‘I can’t wait to take that off you later.’_

_‘I love you’._

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: For fun, not for profit. Just an attempt at trying something new.


End file.
